Police reportedly caught onto da Silva's involvement after tracing telephone calls between the pilot and the two other suspects arrested in Schunck's recovery, David Vicente Acevedo and Vitor Oliveira Amorim.

Local media accounts suggest that police became wise to Acevedo and Amorim after coming across both fingerprints and closed-circuit television footage of the dastardly duo changing vehicles mid-getaway. Using that evidence, and additional information captured by listening in on phone conversations between the kidnappers and Schunck's family's family, authorities were able to scoop together enough data to lead them to the criminals' hideout, at which point they were able to swoop in and save Ecclestone's mother-in-law without firing a shot.

After being freed from her kidnapping, Schunck beseeched the courts to lock up her captors. "I only ask for these bandits to be jailed so they can't abduct anyone else in Sao Paulo," she said, according to the BBC.